The Republicans vow never to give anything away, except, of course, to the already wealthy. They demand an ever-shrinking government. How will they diminish the varmint? Eliminate taxes on the rich and on corporations, for a start, and protect the loopholes. Why should the rich have to suffer? That’s what the poor and middle classes are for.
These champions of wealth would also like to eliminate those pesky controls on money-making entities. Think of how much more profit corporations will be able to realize when no liberal do-gooder with any authority creeps around. Companies will be free to pollute land, water and air, and if that makes people sick, they can always file a class-action suit before our corporation-loving Supreme Court majority has eliminated that possibility.
Suppose we had no controls on pharmaceuticals, banks, insurance companies or Wall Street. As it is, ordinary people are gasping for breath, trying to cope with the staggering costs of medicine, hospitalization and insurance, not to mention debt. The financial industry is busy sucking the life out of the same people they showered with credit during the mortgage crisis. Credit card companies continue to amass obscene profits from hapless customers, while encouraging them to take on more debt.
What would restrain the greedy folks who want to despoil the country with drilling for oil and fracking for gas? They would shackle us to dependence on fossil fuels instead of investment in alternate energy sources, which, by the way, could give the economy a much needed thump on the chest. After all, they claim, there’s no proof that we’ve imperiled the universe with pollution.
The Republicans, or at least the thugs that have taken them hostage, have hardly begun on their evil quest. They aim to destroy all of the meaningful social services instituted in the last decades. These were laws passed to protect the common good, like social security, unemployment insurance, workmen’s compensation.
Even he draconian cuts proposed by the White House have been rejected by the Republicans, because they accompany increased taxes on the super-rich. NO MORE TAXES, they scream, and NO SPENDING on the people who need it. Who are these guys, and whom do they represent? Are people so insanely greedy that they approve of breaking the backbone of society while allowing the moneyed to engorge themselves? When the poor are finally starved to death, where will the vultures turn for more sustenance?
Current statistics for debt among Americans are hard to find: suffice to say that we owe more than we should, and more than we can afford. Perhaps people in debt are more inclined to worry about spending than those who are debt-free. That’s the only explanation I can fathom for those who continue to support the relentless, irresponsible, wrong-headed trammeling of the poor perpetrated by people who supposedly represent all of us….
